The Afrikaans Language

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Megg

As a native-speaking English person I know how much Afrikaans people are constantly ripped off by the English. Having a completely mixed up family I am also lucky to be completely bilingual. This all means that i have the best of both worlds, which I would like to share a bit of.

Afrikaans is an extremely expressive and descriptive language with words that can’t even possibly be translated into English like ‘soutpiel’ (not something I’d like to explain as it is extremely derogative towards English speaking people), translated meaning is salt cock.

It is also a gutterish language, which is often found to be difficult as far as pronunciation is concerned for the English. This is where we come across the ‘g’ sound in ‘Gerda’.

Then we come across expressions that ,if translated into English make no sense but in Afrikaans, make completes sense. Here we find expressions like ‘Ja, Nee’ meaning ‘Yes, No’ (in Afrikaans this is often used when agreeing with what a person had said), and Lekker Kak meaning Nice Crap (in Afrikaans this means that something is really bad).

So a lot of this makes no sense to the English but to the Afrikaans makes complete sense. The way that i have translated these meanings and expressions doesn’t even do them justice as it’s more-or-less a deffinition but not really, ha ha ha. Now isn’t that confusing?

Weekend Fun?

Posted on April 20, 2008 by Megg

My weekend started off rather well yet busy. I went to dancing and then rushed to take my mom to the doctor. The doctor practiced Iridology on her which is where she takes a photo of your eye and then from that can tell what is wrong with you. It’s really fascinating.

Friday evening an old friend of mine (Lisa), Matt, and I went to a play which was put on by the Tuks Drama department. It was horribly boring and we found ourselves along with 80% of the other guests leaving after the 1st half. I love theatre, but that was just a bit much.

Last night we went to a girl i dance with, Denise’s, 21st. We did an opening dance there, which was great fun. The theme was African Zulu and a wonderful night overall. Matt even langarmed with me. It was the first time he had ever even tried and i have to say he was surprisingly good at it.

Me, Denise, Natasja

Small Gestures

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Megg

Today a really good friend of mine found out that she has a cyst on her ovary. She’s 20.

This made me think that there are so many things in life that we take for granted everyday. Wonderful friends, Giving birth (as painful as it is), having warm beds and a roof over our heads, and good medical care. I know these things sound rather normal and everyone has heard that you should be thankful for them, but are we really? Do we really realise how lucky we are?

I always park in the same area at Varsity and the car guard there just went missing the one day. He was gone for about a week. When he came back his foot was all bandaged up and the bandage was covered in a mixture of blood and puss. He had poured boiling water over his foot by accident. He didn’t have painkillers so i took him some along with some food and water. Just the smile on his face was absolutely priceless for me. He was so grateful. That to him was way better than money. Today i walked past and he stopped me to tell me that another guy also wanted to help him. He brought him some detol to wash his foot with and some betadene and clean bandages. Now that made my day. Just knowing that people care and are willing to help him.

At the same time today the younger car guard saw a big bag of smaller individually wrapped packs of tissues in my car and he asked if he could buy one from me. I gave him the whole bag as i wasn’t using them in any case. He was so happy about that.

I know these examples sound insignificant to us but by just acknowledging people ,like these men, as human beings and treating them as equals gives them more pride than you can think. Small gestures can make someones day. Small gestures can make your day. Small gestures can even change your outlook on life.

Deepest Darkest Africa

Posted on April 14, 2008 by Megg

So they say candlelight is supposed to be romantic. They also say that candlelight makes things look better than they might normally look.

Tonight i found myself questioning these ideas. Why did I land up questioning them? Well Eskom, that’s why! Need i say more? Load-shedding might be what we need at the moment but when you have to teach dancing in the dark and without the music it really is not fun.

Not only was that irritating but living in South Africa today everyone knows there are issues with crime so being a few girls left late at night in a pitch black school alone, is not fun.

I have to admit though, the candles were a nice touch and I have never seen the studio look so good as it did tonight,lol. As for my dancers, they looked in pretty good shape for just having had a three week long holiday. So there really are some things that are good about candlelight. I have to admit that it ads an extra bit of fun and excitement to the situation as well.

Still New At This.

Posted on April 13, 2008 by Megg

I’m still new at the whole blogging scene. I’m still setting up my profile at some places and trying to figure out what others are. I have now successfully set up my universe at Netvibes so please feel free to go check it out.

Matt has also given me a list as long as my arm of various things to sign up for, after all he is the expert on all these things, but hopefully soon enough i might be teaching him a thing or two. For this to happen though i might need a bit of help, so by all means feel free to help out so that i can try catch him at his own game, lol.

Please also check out my contacts page i have added a few links of places that i can be found online. And a few more links will be added soon.

“Dear John”

Posted on April 12, 2008 by Megg

So i just finished this book called “Dear John” Nicholas Sparks. Not sure who he is? Well he is the guy that wrote The Notebook, A Walk To Remember and Message In A Bottle. Does that ring a bell?

By now one can figure that it is a romance. Yep, that’s exactly it. Kind of Pearl Harbour meets Full Metal Jacket…not quite, but close. Well it is a modern war romance. Iraq, 9/11, and all that. It’s great because it’s so real and so possible. It makes one wonder if there really is some kind of romance like in this novel going on out there.

I don’t want to give the story away, so i suggest you go read it. It’s worth the read. I’m sure every girl will agree with me that romances are great (not too much of them though). This one is even better as it’s something to relate to.

I happen to have a weak spot for this kind of thing and i just loved it. Nicholas Sparks is a great writer. We have all seen the movies adapted out of his books and they were great. His novels are even better.

This book has inspired me to go outside when there is a full moon and just reflect on the good in my life, particularly the happy times in my relationship with Matt. Books like this make me all soppy and girly, I just can’t help it.

Extreme Forgetfulness

Posted on April 9, 2008 by Megg

My day started off wonderfully with me oversleeping as usual and then falling out of bed just in time to shower and get ready for my first make-up practical. For a few days now i have been preparing. I got green contact lenses, a red wig, green false nails and eyelashes and covered ivy leaves in latex. All to perfect my poison Ivy make-up. As this has been going on for so long, i have been asked by even my optometrist for photo’s so that she too can see the final product. So i cleverly took my camera with me into the practical to take photo’s.

My Red Wig

Preparing the latex covered Ivy leaves

Green contact lens and natural blue eye

I encountered a few difficulties during this practical; Firstly my nose putty didn’t want to soften and mould to my nose. When i finally got it softened it didn’t want to harden as the lights in the change rooms were so hot. Then my make-up started running and melting also because of those stupid lights (and no i can’t move away from them because then you are not able to see how your make-up will look under the stage lights). And lastly when i was finished my make-up and after my lecturer assessed my work of art, i quickly started to remove all my make-up and extra accessories. Halfway through this process i realised that i never took a photo. OOPS! I then recieved a message from Matt reminding me to take a photo. Just a minute too late. So i took one of my red nose as i ripped the prosthetic nose off my face and with most of my make-up already removed. I also then took photo’s of everyone elses faces.

My extremely red nose…OUCH!

Because of my complete forgetfulness I now have to do my make-up all over again from scratch so that i have a photo to show everyone. Don’t worry that photo will then soon be posted on my blog too. For the meantime though, here are some of the photo’s of the really awesome faces that were made up today.

Stunning shading in this parrot

Fairy and Witch

Scary Skeleton (looks like something out of “Nightmare before Christmas”

Really good Kabuki make-up (Japanese Theatre)

Girly Classics

Posted on April 8, 2008 by Megg

This is me. This is my blog. Please read the about me section for more information on who I am, What I do and where i am from.

What i have lately found to be interesting about myself is the fact that, even though I am an English Studies student at the University of Pretoria and one would think that i enjoy reading great English classics and famous literature pieces but instead i mainly only ever want to read soppy but funny girly books by authors like Marian Keyes and books with titles like “Pants on Fire” and “Pretty Little Mistakes”. I simply can’t help it. These are the kinds of novels i prefer. I see them as a form of escapism where i can relate to the characters and their feelings.

Of course most of these books end with juicy yet happy endings. Does this mean that I always look on the bright side of life or simply that i can be naive? I would like to think that it is a little bit of both worlds. In my eyes naivety is not always a bad thing. It keeps ones spirit high and ones hopes up. These could be false illusions that i am creating for myself but isn’t it ok if that is what makes me happy? Isn’t it ok if that is what makes my world go around?

Dancing on the Radio

a blog by Megg Geri

Monthly Archives: April 2008